The Freeman Flash - Elizabeth Freeman Center

The Freeman Flash
JANUARY 2014
ELIZABETH FREEMAN CENTER’S OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER
The Spirit of the Holidays
ISSUE XXV
International Women’s Day, March 8th
Great food!
Great company!
Great prizes!
Great fun!
Alan Cetti and his grandchildren with holiday gifts donated by
the Berkshire County Sheriff’s Department and their friends
Join us for our annual International Women’s Day
celebration, on Saturday, March 8th at Flavours of Malaysia
in Pittsfield. Haven’t come before? Make this the year. Call
Flavours at 443-3188 for your reservation for a fabulous buffet
dinner - $35.
Every year we witness an outpouring of kindness and
Just the Ticket
generosity from people who help make sure our clients have presents for their children and themselves over the holidays. And
The perfect gift for
though we witness it each year, it never stops touching our hearts.
Valentine’s Day
We send this enormous thank-you to everyone who donated to
and birthour Holiday Project this December.
days!
Holidays can be especially hard. Survivors often feel a
tremendous sense of loss and disruption. Your donations made
Berkshire Pure Indulgence raffle tickets are on sale.
many children very happy, and reminded our clients that people
You
can
win either a luxurious Canyon Ranch Spa Day or a piccare about them – that they deserve joy in their lives, as do we
nic
basket
with passes for two to almost every cultural destinaall.
tion in the Berkshires! These tickets are great little gifts for famIt’s appeal-ing!
ily or friends for holidays or special events. We will be drawing
winners at our International Women’s Day celebration at FlaThe response to our annual apvours. You don’t have to be present to win, but we hope you
peal has been tremendous. Thank you to
are! All proceeds benefit Elizabeth Freeman Center.
everyone who mailed back donations and
notes of encouragement. And if you
haven’t had a chance to send your donation in, there’s still time and it is easy!
Visit our new website at
www.elizabethfreemancenter.org and
click “Donate.” Your donations keep our work going.
“Thank you for all Elizabeth Freeman Center has and had done
for me…Everybody used to give up on me but [EFC] fought for
me...I wanted you to know my life is beautiful. Thank you for
giving me a life.”
-A survivor
Pittsfield - 43 Francis Ave.
(413) 499-2425
Gt. Barrington - 40 Railroad St.
(413) 429-8190
North Adams - 85 Main St.
(413) 663-7459
24 hour hotline 1-866-401-2425
Tickets are available online on our Facebook page and
at www.elizabethfreemancenter.org (in Events), or at Bagels
Too, Flavours Restaurant, Steve Valenti’s Clothing for Men, The
Hair Studio, and Elizabeth Freeman Center.
Supported locally by: Berkshire United Way ● Northern Berkshire United Way ● Williamstown Community Chest ● City of
Pittsfield ● Verizon Foundation ● Town of Great Barrington ●
Berkshire Life Charitable Foundation ● Women’s Fund of W.
Mass. ● Aria Foundation ● The Green Foundation ● Berkshire
Bank Foundation ● Many community members, groups, businesses, and towns ●
“Mumbet”: Part V
An Inspiring Letter
And now, in honor of the 184th anniversary of her death, we
We received this letter from Dalton Girl Scouts Troop
offer the final installment of our series on the life of our name40061 and were so impressed by the knowledge and compassion
sake, Elizabeth Freeman. The series was written with Jana Laiz, of these young women. Thank you, Troop 40061!
who together with Ann-Elizabeth Barnes, published “A Free
Woman on God’s Earth,” a book on the life of Mumbet.
On August 21, 1781, the decision in Brom & Bet v. Ashley is announced and Mumbet is free at last. She and Brom, her
fellow petitioner, are stunned. A lifetime of servitude is
over. The abolitionists in the courtroom cheer. Colonel Ashley
is ordered to pay 30 shillings in damages and all court costs.
As they all make their way out of the Great Barrington
courthouse into the blazing sun, Colonel Ashley asks Mumbet to
come back to work for him as a paid servant, but Mumbet has
other plans. She has decided (her first decision as a free woman)
to return to the household of her lawyer, Sedgwick, with her
daughter, Little Bet, and work there as the nanny and head
housekeeper. She will be in charge of the growing family, and
be free on her own time to work as midwife and herbalist healer
to the townsfolk. Brom chooses to return to General Ashley, but
this time as a paid employee. Mumbet takes the name Elizabeth
Freeman, though she is still called Mumbet by all who know and
love her.
In The News…
A federal judge found unconstitutional Florida’s law requiring that welfare applicants
undergo drug testing. Florida Gov. Rick Scott
is planning to appeal.
In November, Marissa Alexander, who
had been given a 20-year sentence in
Florida for firing a warning shot at her
abusive husband, won a new trial after a
year in jail.
The Supreme Court recently
heard oral arguments in the
case of McCullen v. Coakley, in which anti-abortion
Mumbet continues on at the Sedgwicks until his daughactivists are challenging a
ter Catharine is grown. With the money she has saved from
Massachusetts law that forworking, she buys a piece of land on Cherry Hill in Stockbridge
bids them from talking to or
and lives out her life in happiness and freedom. On December
harassing people entering
28, 1829, Mumbet passes away, her estimated age, 85. She lived
abortion clinics within a 35as a free woman for over 50 years.
foot buffer zone in front of
the clinic The Court found a
Writing about the life of Mumbet, Catharine Maria
similar
buffer-zone
law
constitutional
in 2000, but has since seen
Sedgwick recalls hearing her say, “Any time, any time, when I
its
balance
of
justices
tip
in
favor
of
the
conservative members.
was a slave, if one minute’s freedom had been offered to me, and
I had been told I must die at the end of that minute, I would have
taken it – just to stand one minute on God’s earth a free woman –
Immigration reform backers think
I would.”
there may be a narrow window in late
spring when immigration reform, currently stalled in the US House of RepThankfully for us and the world, Elizabeth Freeman did not die
resentatives, has a shot of passing.
for her freedom. She fought for it when and how she could, with
enormous courage and dignity, and in the end, she won.